September 12, 2009

I've got to tell you, I laughed like mad at the trailer for the new Michael Moore movie "Capitalism: A Love Story":

I will definitely see this movie. Annoying as I've found Michael Moore at times in the past, I love the light but stinging touch. Quite charming, if the trailer is accurate.

Okay, see? Sometimes I throw out red meat for the liberals.

Now, here's red meat for you righties. In the trailer at 1:40, we hear and then see George W. Bush and — even though I was in a theater in the lefty hotbed of Madison, Wisconsin — I leaned over to my seatmate (the estimable Meade) and said (loud enough to be heard): "I miss that guy."

***

The movie we were seeing was — as the previous post hints — "Inglourious Basterds." In "Chapter 2" of that film, when Brad Pitt first appeared, Meade now says — if he hadn't needed to maintain Hoosierly etiquette — he wanted to lean over to me and whisper "George W."

And it's true. Brad Pitt is kind of doing a George Bush impersonation. (Meade points to 0:30 in this trailer, when the character says "killin' Nazis.") Now, it's an awful accent, really. And I don't think it's a Tennessee accent, which is what we're told it is. Oddly, later in the movie, there's a whole thing about speaking Italian with a bad accent, and Pitt's is the worst of the bad accents, so maybe there — and throughout the movie — Quentin Tarantino intended to treat us to layer upon layer of joking.

37 comments:

"In the trailer at 1:40, we hear and then see George W. Bush and — even though I was in a theater in the lefty hotbed of Madison, Wisconsin — I leaned over to my seatmate (the estimable Meade) and said (loud enough to be heard): "I miss that guy."

Gawd, how I wish you had a camera for the reaction of everyone within earshot;-)

Well at least you could argue with George Bush! He mostly said what he thought and said f--k you to the lefties and if you didn't like it you could complain about it. He gave food for discussion.

Obama tells us, for instance, that he's gonna spend money but its not going to cost anything. That's simply impossible! You have to parse the doublespeak before you can argue with it. And the worst part is that the mainstream media just accepts it and doesn't really call him on his contradictions.

Bush did this a little too-- the worst was when he said, on national television, that "we don't torture". Bullshit. It made him seem like a whiny spineless creep.

In fact, I think Bush was at his best when he was bitterly honest, even if many people didn't like what he had to say.

"I heard that in the trailer, and good Lord that's supposed to be a TENNESSEE accent?"

No, it's not. It's quite obviously an 'Althouse Hillbilly' accent.

More seriously, I figured it was supposed to be the affected pseudo-southern accent that everybody acquires as they move up the ranks in the Army.

I checked the film out when a buddy was on leave, and we both found the accent to be both hilarious and dead on.

But this is a blog post about the Michael Moore trailer, right? I got nothin'. Oh, actually, I do!

I call a moratorium on the use of M.I.A.'s Paper Planes on the big screen. Pineapple Express, Slumdog Millionaire, and now this trailer. It's a great song and all, but people are spreading it all kinds of thin now.

Oh, yeah. Good catch! Of course, that one gives me the warm and fuzzies due to its association with Little Miss Sunshine, which is a big part of the reason it has gotten used in trailers ever since.

Of course, the winner and still champion is this one. Which I always find kind of jarring when I hear it in some kind of epic film trailer, because it's so singularly associated in my mind with the relentlessly depressing world of Requiem for a Dream.

Based on the trailer for Basterds, I assumed Pitt is W, the Nazi's are al Qaeda (doesn't he even call them terrorist occupiers or something like that at one point in the trailer?), and the film is the GWOT film that Hollywood could only make if they made Nazis the bad guys instead of the brown-skinned beardie-weirdies that we're actually fighting over there.

I wonder how accurate my assumptions are; haven't seen the film yet.

As for Moore, it's tempting but doesn't it look like it'll just be more of his practiced whining and posing? The trailer makes his schtick seem about as contrived as Bruno. I've got a wait 'n see attitude towards that one.

I liked the trailer on this one quite a bit. It attempts to expose big business and government working from the same gunnery boat. Not good news for anyone. The movie seems to try to slant towards a, "see what happens with capitalism", but I see this govt./big business camaraderie as an assault on the free markets. I think Friedman would be happy with the general direction of this movie.

Moore cracks me up. He's such an incredible amalgam of contradiction, in'nit. But you have to admit, looking past the sophistry, he does manage to strike a few excellent points.

The great thing about it is, you don't have to even watch them to be 100% versed on their content, thus nicely avoiding contributing to his personal wealth.

A friend of mine had the temerity to tell me I wasn't sufficiently informed until I saw Fahrenheit 9/11 and yet himself was unaware of the fallacy and misdirection. Of course, he would have none of it when samples were pointed out to him. It's all propelled by emotion, after all.

But speaking of red meat, every now and then I have an urge for straight up comfort carbs. Howz'about a plate of handmade semolina pasta with garden basil and tomato to distract ourselves from these carnivorous temptations?

Is there anyone out there who needs a new schtick more desperately than Michael Moore? OK, Gallagher maybe. But still: if Earth were taken over by the Vrymnids of Zorg-3, within a month there would be Moore hanging out in front of the Planetary Domination Pod with a video camera, buttonholing every passing Under-Hivemaster and demanding just five minutes with Galactic Admiral Gloogix.

Him and what he does is the problem in our country: half truth, no truth, and especially this idea that a lie told as a joke is the truth or at least harmless.

People who consider themselves sophisticated fall for this stuff big time. Stewart, Letterman, Maher, Moore. They can tell you the biggest lie and do it in a biting or even vulgar way and it effortlessly moves your understanding without analysis. Before you know it, everything you believe is based on crap that made you laugh. Get a drool cup.

I probably will see his movie, but I'm concerned that Michael Moore will feel guilty about making money using a system he so obviously hates. To be sensitive to his feelings, I plan to buy a ticket to "Cloudy with a Chance for Meatballs" when I go.